For the record, the word Sikh rhymes with click. But knowing how to pronounce Sikhism won’t take you very far toward understanding whether this religious tradition is something that voters in South Carolina should fear and candidates in South Carolina should flee.

I'm down on the Gulf coast again, my third trip since the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster began on April 20. Driving to our live shot position at the Bridge Side Marina, I was struck by the number of churches along the LA-1, the road into Grand Isle, Louisiana. The small fishing community has been hammered by the oil spill. As you cross the bridge into Grand Isle, you can see the yellow boom fighting the oil from lapping up onto the beaches.

Hindus and Muslims gather in Ahmedabad, India, on Tuesday, June 22, to pray for rain. The western state of Gujarat and other parts of India are waiting for the annual monsoon rains to cool down the triple-digit temperatures.

Depending on which headline you read—and you can now read them by the dozens from Boston to Kathmandu—I told Stephen Colbert either that Hindus are “horrible” or that the “Hindu rebirth doctrine is horrible.” As a result of these slurs on Hindus and/or Hinduism, Rajan Zed, President of Universal Society of Hinduism, and Bhavna Shinde of the Forum for Hindu Awakening have reportedly asked for me to apologize.

I am happy to presume that both Zed and Shinde are trying to expose the ignorance about Hinduism among non-Hindus in the West. And as the author of one of the first scholarly articles on "Hinduphobia" in American life, I am happy to admit that such ignorance is rife. In this case, however, there will be no apology–at least not from me–since as anyone who watched the clip with any care can attest, I said nothing against the Hindu tradition.

The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.